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Pakistan and China: 'An all-weather friendship'

Members of the People's Liberation Army Navy stand in formation as they welcome visiting Pakistan Naval vessel PNS Nasr at Shanghai Port International Cruise Terminal, opposite the Pudong financial area, in Shanghai.
REUTERS/Stringer

Pakistanis are often wont to describe their relationship with China as “an all-weather friendship.” This they often do to contrast it with their relationship with the United States, which has known so many ups and downs that the United States is frequently viewed more as an adversary than an ally. Indeed, at the level of popular sentiment, Pakistan is one of the most anti-American countries in the world. On the other hand, Pakistani views of China are remarkably benign and reflect the generally positive evolution of the relationship over a period of 50 years.

Pakistan and China began to draw closer together in the mid-1960s. To some extent, their nascent friendship can be attributed to the old proposition that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Both countries had recently fought wars with India and saw India as a threat to their interests. As a first step in the development of their partnership, Pakistan and China signed a boundary delimitation agreement, under the terms of which Pakistan ceded to China a band of territory in Kashmir. This infuriated the Indians, who laid claim to all of Kashmir. And the plot thickened when China gave unambiguous political support to Pakistan during its 1965 war with India.

During the 1970s, the bilateral relationship became an element in the great power politics of the Cold War. China was at loggerheads with the Soviet Union over both ideology and territory just as India was drawing ever closer to the Soviet Union economically and militarily. Pakistan, for its part, was firmly aligned with the United States. These were the conditions that prevailed when both the Americans and the Chinese decided that the time had come to break out of the stalemate that had characterized their relations for more than 20 years. They saw a rapprochement as a way of countering the power and influence of the Soviet Union. Pakistan entered the picture by playing an important intermediary role in facilitating the visits to Beijing of then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon, and the eventual normalization of Sino-American relations. In the process, Pakistan gained considerable kudos in both Beijing and Washington.

Over the years, there also developed a strong defence relationship between Pakistan and China, from which Pakistan benefitted greatly. In the 1980s, China helped Pakistan establish a factory for the construction and refurbishment of heavy equipment for the army. And China became a supplier of tanks and artillery pieces for the army, of fighter aircraft for the air force, and of patrol vessels for the navy. Of greater significance strategically, Chinese technology was key to the development of Pakistan’s ballistic missile capabilities. And it is generally and widely believed that China provided essential technological assistance to Pakistan in its successful efforts to produce nuclear weapons, which it tested for the first time in 1998.

In recent years, there has been a considerable intensification in relations between Pakistan and China. This can probably be attributed to two factors. On the one hand, Pakistan has experienced a number of downturns in its relations with the United States and has come to rely more heavily on China for political, economic and military support. On the other hand, China has come to see Pakistan as a key ally in its mounting geo-strategic rivalry with India and in its efforts to suppress Islamist extremist movements in its province of Xinjiang.

The number of high-level visits between the two countries has increased markedly, and President Ali Asif Zardari has visited China no less than four times in the last five years. These visits are usually the occasion not only for expressions of mutual friendship, but also for the signature of memoranda of understanding on projects in the field of economic cooperation. While many of these projects are still works in progress, it is already evident that bilateral economic relations between the two countries are taking on substance in areas such as energy, mineral exploration and banking. There are now 120 Chinese companies operating in Pakistan and some 10,000 Chinese nationals working there. The value of two-way trade has increased from roughly $1 billion in 2000 to more than $12 billion in 2012.

Defence relations have continued to grow apace, with China providing Pakistan with modern fighter jets, frigates and an Airborne Warning and Control System between 2008 and 2012. And in November 2012, the two countries completed the fifth round of their strategic dialogue. Socio-cultural relations are also on the rise. There are now four Pakistan Study Centres in China, and some 8,000 Pakistani students are enrolled in Chinese schools and universities. China has opened a Pak-China Friendship Centre in Islamabad and sponsored two Confucius Institutes in Pakistani universities. And in a rather remarkable development, the provincial government of Sindh announced in 2011 that Chinese language courses would become a compulsory element of its education system.

All of this does not mean to say that there are not some minor irritants in the relationship. Some Pakistanis view with dismay and alarm the spectacular growth in China’s economic relations with India. They suggest that this could lead China to tilt towards India in any disputes involving Pakistan. Other Pakistanis are quick to point out that China has no long-term disputes with Pakistan as it does with India, and that China does not view Pakistan as a strategic rival as it does India. The Chinese, for their part, occasionally express concern over Pakistan’s unwillingness or inability to control Islamist extremists, who not only pose a threat to the security of Xinjiang province but who have also mounted terrorist attacks against Chinese establishments and nationals in Pakistan. More often than not, however, Chinese leaders tend to praise Pakistan’s anti-terrorism efforts.

One of the more intriguing questions now hanging over the Pakistan-China relationship concerns the future of the port of Gwadar on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast. The port has been under development for several years, and in February 2013 the Pakistan government handed control of it to China Overseas Port Holdings Limited, a company owned by the Chinese government. The development of Gwadar has been widely touted as providing an outlet to the outside world for the exports of Western China. Some observers, however, also see it as a potential base for the Chinese Navy. As such, it would become an important element in China’s long-term strategy to contest India’s influence and control in the Indian Ocean area. Should China decide to pursue this option and should Pakistan agree to it, it would undoubtedly add a new dimension to the bilateral relationship, drawing the two countries even closer together. At the same time, it would add a new dimension to their troubled relations with India.

The close and friendly relationship between Pakistan and China seems likely to remain an enduring feature on the Asian political map for some time to come. Both countries derive significant benefits from it, and the presence of India in between them only seems to reinforce it.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellow with the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University, and a former Canadian Ambassador to Algeria and High Commissioner to Pakistan.